abitmoreuntogertherness
March 25, 2010
Monday, and we’re back in the city.
The weekend was spent in the Bicol region, between Albay and the province formerly known as Camarines Sur, to feel out that livelihood project (quickly introduced in the last blog entry) a bit more. It has been 3 months since the project first took on a tangible form, and after a lot of interviewing, reading, strategizing, and soul searching, two thirds of our team was back to really see whether our ideas could fly. We had 3 objectives: 1) Check out raw material supply and costs, 2) Understand our technical partner’s (a local producer) operations a bit more, and 3) Gauge the willingness and skill level of the ladies in the village that we set out to start livelihood project for.
I am happy to report that we accomplished all 3, but I think we also uncovered a longer list of questions and stumbling blocks we would need to sort through. ubitmoreuntogetherness. But! That’s OK! We have definitely, definitely, crossed some major milestones.
Kim, Sam, and I started down this path about 6 months ago. Well Kim and I first, to be correct. A landscape architect and urban planner, Kim has practically lived on every continent, gathering ideas and contacts on her way. She got me on Skype, bubbling with ideas: “I have contacts and resources, I want to use them for a better purpose”, and her exact words… “I know this may sound ridiculous, but I want to change the world!”. For anyone who would scoff at this, I’d say let’s take this outside. First, Kim is a dear friend so I wouldn’t stand for it, and second… I’d argue that ideals do have a place in this world. They give people hope, they allow people to believe that they can make a difference, and enables them to work for the change they long to see. And lastly if you can’t be idealistic and honest in the company of good friends, then where else. Anyway. After a couple more Skype hours, we narrowed down our scope to the fields of design, art, and culture. Those were where she had most of her connections, and that’s where she wanted to affect positive change. Design and culture are areas where I have always been interested, so i was happily strung along. “We could promote urban art and artists! Design competitions, exhibits, concerts, fashion shows!” she’d proclaim. “Oh and a custom bike design contest!”, I would add. We had fun going on about this idea and that.
More emails and airplane rides later, and we were finally in the same time zone on the wake of the Western new year. Kim had connected with Sam, an ex project manager from the fashion industry, a little worn out from it all, but invigorated by the wider horizons her new life had in store. We talked about past experiences, ideas that excited us, and a little bit about motivations. Creativity, cottage trades and crafts, design and global markets were themes that emerged and we discovered we were on parallel, if not exact same wave lengths. The first concept that resonated with all three of us was bringing international design sense and consumer understanding together with local crafts and skills, and elevating rich but limited local heritagse to the global stage. Such a direction had impact at the grassroots level but also appealed to our common interest in design and similar cross-continental backgrounds.
I had proposed to Kim that she visit me in Manila so I could take her on a relief mission, bring her to a urban poor collective, and show her some local crafts. We mentioned the ‘exposure trip’ to Sam and she responded with a telling “hmmmm”. Three days later she had a ticket to Manila, and so it was that all three of us spent a week in the Philippines, sounding off ideas and musing about where this venture would take us. With the help of a friend and some ultra lucky timing, we managed to get on board a Gawad Kalinga tour of the Naga area (in Camsur) with the organisation’s founder Tito Tony Meloto. We visited GK villages and listened to Tito Tony talk about his vision for GK, financial sustainability, and how he and his team built the GK brand. It was inspiring. We started to think about maybe starting a livelihood program within the GK framework, as they provided a crucial link to the kind of communities we wanted to work with. Our ideas started to take on some vague form…
to be cont’d. this entry is looking long.
